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Drought in the Land of the Long, White Cloud

Science fiction fanatics know it as “Middle-earth“. Abel Tasman, the Dutch explorer who became the first European to sail there, called it “Staten Landt“, which was later changed to Nieuw Zeeland, Nova Zeelandia, and, finally, New Zealand. The native Maori people call it “Aotearoa“, which loosely translates to “the land of the long, white cloud”.

A group of volcanic islands southeast of Australia, New Zealand is known for the Southern Alps, the locations where they filmed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and rugby, although I’m sure there’s more to the country than that. Residents of New Zealand refer to themselves as “kiwis”, although it is not clear if they prefer to be thought of as birds or fruit.

Wellington, the nation’s capital, has begun rationing water for the first time in recorded history (which covers about 170 years). The chair of the Wellington region’s committee in charge of the water supply was quoted as saying, “People should shower with a friend, if that’s an option . . . or put a brick in the toilet. If you know anyone who’s particularly adept at rain dances, then encourage them to get out there and do what they do.”

One of the previous links mentioned that the drought is so bad, it can be seen from space. They didn’t provide evidence to back up that claim, so I guess I have to do it. Here’s what VIIRS saw on 28 January 2013 (before the North Island went 4-6 weeks without any significant precipitation):

The two images above are “true color” composites. If you look closely at the two images, you might notice significantly less green vegetation in the 21 March 2013 image, particularly in box that covers 39° to 40° S latitude and 174° to 176° E longitude. (Remember, you can see the full-resolution image by clicking on it, and then on the “1434×2120” link below the banner.)

Not convincing? Maybe it shows up a bit better in the “natural color” composite, which has a strong vegetation signal. Here are those images:

And just to be clear, here are the images zoomed in on the west side of the North Island, where the drought has hit the hardest:

Drought impact on vegetation in the North Island of New Zealand between 28 January (left) and 21 March 2013 (right)

In the image on the left, from 28 January, light green areas represent grassland/pasture (backed up by this land use map) and dark green areas represent forests. In the image on the right, from 21 March, the grassy areas have turned brown while the forests have remained green. Six weeks with almost no rain will do that to grass.

While the “true color” and “natural color” RGB composites are only qualitative (and require viewers to be able to distinguish sometimes subtle changes in the amount of green in the images), there are ways to quantify the “greenness” of vegetation from satellite. The most widely used method is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI for short). The NDVI has been calculated for more than 40 years with Landsat and AVHRR. We can do the same calculation with VIIRS. That’s what is shown below.

VIIRS NDVI images of New Zealand from 28 January (left) and 21 March 2013 (right)

On this color scale, red and yellow colors indicate high values of NDVI (or very green vegetation). Green and blue colors indicate low values of NDVI (sparse, dead or brown vegetation). Notice how most of the North Island has gone from yellow or red in January (on the left) to blue or green in March (on the right). NDVI values have decreased by 20-30% over this period.

I guess if there is one benefit of the drought, it’s that it has been clear enough over New Zealand for satellites to see it. In fact, January and February have broken records for the amount of sunshine in many parts of the country. The land of the long, white cloud hasn’t been living up to its name.